Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) announced yesterday that it has
begun taking bids to upgrade its existing computing power and to begin work on
building the world’s fastest supercomputer.

The new supercomputer would be tasked with ensuring that the
United States
nuclear deterrent program remains operational without the need to detonate live
nukes underground to ensure they still work. “LANL currently has some of the
most limited computational capabilities of all the DOE laboratories. That will
change with this new petaflop computer, which will fill an immediate need to
increase the lab’s computing capabilities,” New Mexico Senator Pete Domenici
said.

The new supercomputer, dubbed "Roadrunner," will operate at 1
petaflop initially with the ability to scale to 2 petaflops as the project is
completed and will cost an estimated $900M USD when all is said and done.

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Having 3000 or so PC linked together will not make it one super computer, it is still 3000 PC. Like others said, the connection and scheduling (or other software) that makes the whole thing works is going to be the key in performance and scalability.

Without scalability, you may add 1000 CPU and not make the system any faster.

"Paying an extra $500 for a computer in this environment -- same piece of hardware -- paying $500 more to get a logo on it? I think that's a more challenging proposition for the average person than it used to be." -- Steve Ballmer